(Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

Shortly before Scott Morrison yesterday became the first former Australian prime minister to be censured by Parliament, condemned for secretly appointing himself to several ministries over the course of the COVID era, he rose to defend himself.

His speech treated us to one last flurry, one last cavalcade, one last embarrassment of pure, uncut Morrisonia.

The non-apology

Morrison, of course, is far from the first politician to offer an “apology” so riddled with caveats and qualifiers as to resemble a quaking Jenga tower, but he may have perfected the art by reducing his hoarding of state power, kept secret from his constituents and colleagues, to a matter of personal offence — a faux pas on the level of forgetting a colleague’s birthday. Naturally, the word “but” splits the whole thing down the centre:

I acknowledge that non-disclosure of arrangements has caused unintentional offence and extend an apology to those who were offended.

But Mr Speaker, I do not apologise for taking action, especially prudent redundancy action, in a national crisis in order to save lives and to save livelihoods.

Self-aggrandisement

It may surprise you to hear this of the guy who once claimed it was “God’s will” that he one day become prime minister, and who soared into office in 2019 on the back of a divine eagle — not to mention keeping a trophy with his three-word paean to Australia’s collective inhumanity carved into silver in his office — but Morrison got a touch grand in defending his time in office.

Sure, I’m guilty, he said — if being a hero who saved Australia is a crime. If that’s the case then lock me up:

I am proud of my achievements in this place, and I am proud of my government, Mr Speaker. I am proud, Mr Speaker, [that] at a time of extreme trial, my government stood up and faced the abyss of uncertainty that our country looked into and the coercion of a regional bully and saw Australia through the storm.

Australia emerged stronger under my government. I have no intention now of submitting to the political intimidation of this government, using its numbers in this place to impose its retribution on a political opponent.

You should have asked

Finally, the apotheosis of the speech and a synecdoche of the whole strange, shambolic Morrison era — the shrugging abrogation of responsibility, the faint irritation at having to explain himself, and most of all, the dishonesty he had to know would be exposed:

Had I been asked about these matters at the time at the numerous press conferences I held, I would have responded truthfully about the arrangements I had put in place.

It didn’t matter that this would require the press to ask him about a very specific and unprecedented series of arrangements that were being done in secret. Or that his office was famously dismissive of questions it didn’t like. Or that it clanged up against his previous assertion that he kept the ministers concerned in the dark because he didn’t want them to second guess themselves, itself contradicted by his contention he believed the arrangements were to be made public via the gazette. Or that he had, when asked about immigration matters just before the last election and a year after making himself the minister for immigration, quite literally said, “Well, I’m not the minister.” It’s not his fault no one asked.

It was every thread of Morrison as PM knotted together into one moment, reminiscent of when Morrison was asked to “categorically” deny backgrounding against staffer Brittany Higgins and her partner, and managed nothing better than equivocation, the lying about a “Labor lie” about his own lies on electric vehicles, and so many others.

Surely this is the last time we’ll get this — it’s inconceivable Morrison will get anywhere near power again before he quits Parliament. And while there will no doubt be more stray revelations when his colleagues write memoirs to finish the distancing job that’s already well underway via the papers and the pages of the latest Niki Savva, surely (surely) none will require a lengthy speech or press conference.

So if you enjoy Morrison’s distinct combination of evasion and self-pity, savour this masterclass, this final trapeze act before the tents are collapsed and the circus leaves town.